DUBAI: Most investable sectors of the Indian economy are now open for 100 percent share ownership under the automatic route for businessmen and firms in the Arab region, India’s Minister of State for External Affairs Dr. Rajkumar Ranjan Singh has said.

The automatic route allows entities outside India to invest in the country without prior government approval, Emirates News Agency reported on Monday.

AL-MUKALLA, Yemen: The UN has said that nearly one third of the oil on Yemen’s deteriorating Safer tanker has been transferred to a new tanker, as Yemenis expressed optimism about the operation to salvage the vessel.

The UNDP administrator, Achim Steiner, said on Sunday that 360.000 barrels of oil were pumped from the aging tanker to the replacement tanker.

BEIRUT: The Lebanese Ministry of Environment launched a campaign on Sunday bearing the slogan “Clean up Your Country.”

Municipalities, dozens of nongovernmental organizations and volunteers took part in the campaign that started from the Beirut waterfront.

Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said: “It’s a message to prohibit throwing waste randomly.

“It is also a way to affirm that the role of municipalities is crucial in cleaning up their cities, towns and forests, and to support them, in order to spread environmental awareness.”

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: Several thousand people briefly took to the streets across the Gaza Strip on Sunday to protest chronic power outages and difficult living conditions, providing a rare public show of discontent with the territory’s Hamas government. Hamas security forces quickly dispersed the gatherings.
Marches took place in Gaza City, the southern town of Khan Younis and other locations, chanting “what a shame” and in one place burning Hamas flags, before police moved in and broke up the protests.

GAZA: While soaring temperatures across the Middle East are causing discomfort for many, Gaza electrical appliance repairman Mustafa Abdou is enjoying a boom in business amid surging demand for electric fans.
“I have been in the business for 40 years, it has never been so hot,” said the 70-year-old, sitting in the middle of piles of broken fans and other electric appliances inside his small shop in Gaza Beach refugee camp.